Balcony
by Rachel C. Astrid
Summary: Prompt fill for kink meme '13: Beckett gives herself as a gift to Castle for the weekend. Anything he wants.
1. Chapter 1

Prompt: _**Beckett gives herself as a gift to Castle for the weekend. Anything he wants. (Toys in public with Castle controlling them, Orgasm denial, Rough sex in public, Exhibitionism)**_

* * *

**Balcony**

* * *

"I made the reservations," he says, looking accomplished. It's a similar grin to the one he gets after he's finally finished a novel or cracked a case or pushed her to have at least one more climax just when she thought she was spent. She loves that grin.

Occasionally she fears it. But mostly she loves it.

She has something for him for their weekend getaway, too. She offers him a small gift box tied with ribbon. "I know it's only Monday, but I thought you'd enjoy knowing all week what I had in mind for you come Friday."

He's halfway through the ribbon, but that doesn't surprise her. She's only surprised that he hasn't made a lascivious comment about Come Friday.

She's already thought it. She's already counting down. They both could really use this weekend away.

As he opens the box, she watches him intently. His lips quirk up. His eyes shine. "Is this a gag gift for the 'man who has everything'?" he asks. Its only contents are a slip of paper—the word _Anything, _written in Kate's handwriting.

"I'm your gift," she elaborates, eyes shining back at his. She purses her lips and lets one mischievous brow arch to convey the full extent of her meaning. "All weekend. All yours. Anything you want."

"Anything, huh?"

Shyly she ducks her head but catches herself; looks up again to be as bold as she wants to be. "You just tell me what you want, and . . . it's yours." She leans in for a kiss, but he playfully steps back, teasing her.

"I'll do that," he says with that same accomplished grin, and she thinks maybe she misspoke earlier. It seems he's going to enjoy knowing all week what he has in mind for her.

* * *

She's reading on the couch on Thursday night when he comes in from his office.

He stands before her, silent and content, until she realizes he's there.

"What's up, Castle?"

So far he's told her nothing of what he wants of her, what he wants for them. Tonight he only says: "I want the balcony." Then he disappears again into the other room.

"From me?" she calls after him, futilely. He's gone. He's scheming.

She can sense his grin through the wall of books between them.

* * *

By the time they get back to the loft after work on Friday, Kate's pretty sure they're not going to make it on the road as early as planned.

They left the precinct on time, of course. They're just coming up against an unforeseen delay in the bedroom, their safe haven from the family bustling about the kitchen with their own dinner preparations.

Final touches on their packing somehow evolved into foreplay, and now that her pants and underwear are around her ankles, she's not exactly in a hurry to leave.

Castle parts her folds and sucks on her clit. "I couldn't wait to open my present," he quips, making her whimper with his fingers while his mouth is otherwise engaged.

She's mad with it already—not that they've been abstaining, but it's still been a long week waiting for their getaway—and in her escalating euphoria, she murmurs something that doesn't make sense even to her.

Road. Reservation. Time. Yes fuck oh there.

Something like that.

He gives her slit a long lick before returning to his suckling and fingering. She writhes beneath him, scraping his scalp as her legs begin to tighten and tremble. She tries to breathe, tries to release air and tension and—oh. Oh, no.

"Castle?"

"Yes?"

Let's see. What's the polite way to say this to the man you've gifted with yourself? "Why are you pulling my pants up?" There now. Only a little bit like she wants to kill him.

"Oh!" he says, almost theatrically. "You're right. I forgot something."

Did he forget to fuck her? She knows they've got to head out soon, but since they got this far, it seems only fitting that they take one for the road.

But apparently he's got something else in mind. He leaves her lying on the bed while he fetches something out of his luggage, something he must have packed earlier because she never noticed it.

The realizations hit her as soon as she identifies the wireless purple egg in his hands. She feels her face flush.

"This is for us," he says, easily sliding the toy into her wet pussy. "But you're going to hold onto it. That half, anyway." His grin is back in all its glory.

"You have a remote control." It's a guess, but it isn't a question.

"Hm?" Is he seriously not even going to admit it?

Please. As though she couldn't tell. "You're delirious with power already."

He gives an appreciative glance to her naked legs, her aching center. "You really want to know?"

"I already kn—mm. . . ." Oh, oh it feels good. Just a teasing pulse, steady and low but gone too soon, leaving her insides waiting, longing for the pattern to come back.

Castle's almost as pleased with it as she is. "I am _really_ looking forward to hearing more of that sound."

He tucks the remote control into his pocket and toys with the string dangling from the vibrator inside her, and she doesn't know whether to beg him to take it out or turn it on or leave it be—yes, leave it be until and only until he's ready to play. Oh, that option is so tempting. But then she realizes it isn't actually an option. It's what's going to happen, because Castle is slowly easing her panties back up her legs and she lifts to cooperate.

"Any other questions?"

Just one. Because she's _his _gift, and as much as she's sure he'll get off on this, it wasn't a request she was expecting when she offered him _Anything_. "Why?"

He simply says, "Because I want the balcony." Then he pulls up her pants, the toy safe and snug inside her and hidden oh so innocently beneath two layers of clothing. "Now let's hit the road."


	2. Chapter 2

She groans, almost as annoyed as she is aroused. "I can _hear _it."

"Yeahhh," he sighs. "Isn't it great?"

She steadies herself in the passenger seat, crossing and uncrossing her legs. "I just . . . expected it to be quieter."

"Mm, I shopped around with that in mind. But apparently if you really want quiet and unobtrusive you need to be willing to give up a bit of power."

"And I guess you wouldn't want to do that now would you?"

"Oh, no," he agrees.

She rides out the thrumming vibrations while pedestrians pour into the crosswalk ahead of them, all so unsuspecting of the toy nestled in her sex.

As though the ongoing tease doesn't have her warm and tingly enough, the sight of these crowds so close and so oblivious to her dirty little secret is actually doing it for her—one of those situations she didn't know would turn her on until now that she's thrust into it.

Who knew? Maybe a little exhibitionism really is as much her kink as it is Castle's.

And maybe, almost, with just a little more sensation—

"Green," Castle announces, clicking the vibe off the moment the traffic light changes. "Have you won yet?"

"Won?" she says, breathing deeply as she slips farther and farther away from the edge of release. They're playing a game Castle has dubbed Green Means Go, Red Means Come, and she is not winning. Not by a long shot. "No."

"Better luck next light," he chirps.

She's suspected for at least three traffic lights now that he doesn't want her to win. Not yet.

Of course, it's only another block before they're approaching yet another light, and Kate curses city driving at rush hour.

As usual, Castle adjusts the vibe to a low pulse for the fleeting moment of yellow and then to a continuous high vibe for red that makes Kate writhe in spite of herself.

"Oh. . . . Oh, God. Cas—mm, unh. . . ." The moan slips into a defeated whimper as the pedestrians eventually disperse and the sedan rolls over the painted white lines and through a shiny green light. Her walls convulse dully around the silenced toy as though to ask why the good thing stopped.

Castle grants her some quiet, no doubt containing his amusement at her gradual recovery. "You okay?"

"I don't know how much longer I can take this."

"It's only been one mile," he laughs, and she groans in self-pity. "You know you can always safe word out, right?" It isn't a taunt or a tease; his tone is all genuine concern and love, and her heart flutters.

But since they're pulling up to another red, she's feeling more sassy than sweet. She answers from her groin. "If I did it because I couldn't stand waiting anymore, would you pull over and fuck me right there?"

She can feel her body lubricating the egg, celebrating the return of the vibrations even as it begs for thrusting motions and clitoral stimulation that she's already been forbidden to provide herself.

She swears into the back of one hand and squeezes the seat with the other. God, what is this torturous pleasure that takes her so close and just shy of close enough?

The light changes and she's never felt more conflicted in her life about a traffic signal. Frustration and relief coil together inside her.

Meanwhile, for the first time tonight, Castle looks a little flustered. He swallows hard, his speech sounding only as unaffected as he can force it to sound. "I might pull over and fuck you if **_I _**can't stand it anymore."

Apparently this is getting to him more than he's let on.

Good. Serves him right.

He clears his throat and faces the windshield. "Don't worry," he soothes, as though she's the only one suffering. "We're getting out soon. Thought we'd stop to eat before we leave the city."

That does it. She snaps to attention. "Wait. What?"

* * *

Minutes later, they're taking a ticket in Katz's Delicatessen and ordering their food.

"Aw," he laments. "The table I wanted is occupied."

He gestures toward a table for two. A sign hanging above it reads: _Where Harry met Sally. Hope you have what she had!_

Although she'd never been here, she's well aware of the deli's claim to fame. She flicks her eyes away from the couple in the coveted seats and mutters: "You better not ruin one of my favorite movies, Castle."

While they wait, Kate spends the entire time convinced that someone, everyone, knows what she has inside her, even though Castle has mercifully left the vibrations off since they stepped into the building.

He buzzed her once or twice after they got out of the car, only to discover that the highest and noisiest intensities make Kate crumple in on herself so that she can barely walk. He's promised her mercy, at least until they get to the table, and she's more than a little nervous to sit down to eat.

Of course he teases her during their meal, alternating between the settings in a way that has her crossing and uncrossing her legs again.

Her only consolation is the noise level of a famous deli on a Friday night. It seems every seat is taken and the indistinguishable conversations cover the sound of the vibrator, even at its higher settings. Castle makes this discovery all too soon and exploits it at random, basking in her struggle to feed herself.

Like the pedestrians, this crowd is oblivious—until one young man at a nearby table catches her eye just as she breathes through a burst of vibration.

Occasionally he glances at her after that, smiling like he knows that she's almost getting off in front of everyone here. Yet he says nothing, like he's content just to witness her heightening arousal.

His dining companion never looks in her direction, but she catches herself fantasizing anyway that the man is describing his observations in lewd detail.

Then there's a long moment with no vibrations at all. She manages to eat awhile without squirming or resituating.

"Enjoying your respite?"

"This is intentional? At this point it seemed more likely that the battery burned out."

She half expects him to give a pulse or two to prove her wrong. He doesn't, and she's disappointed. And then she's annoyed that she's disappointed.

She's not sure whether she's craving the release or the tease now.

"No, it's intentional," he says. "I'm going to ask you to do something and I wouldn't want to distract your focus."

"And what's that?"

"Fake an orgasm, right here, à la Sally."

She swallows down the gut reaction about _right here_ and takes a different tack, something sure to distract him. "I don't fake it."

"Never?"

"Not with anyone I wanted to see again." Before he can attempt to draw names from her, she quickly adds, "I'd only be cheating myself, right? Even if"—a furtive glance, a lowered voice—"even if I'm not going to come, how's a guy ever supposed to learn what to do for me if I train him not to?"

He smiles, probably pleased with what she's said out loud in public or, even more likely, the implication that he's been as good in bed as he thinks he has. "Well," he agrees, "you're very direct about what you want when you want to be."

"A win-win situation."

"All right. Then just re-enact the scene for scene's sake. Do it for Meg."

"No," she laughs, secretly holding back that she's always wanted to pull a Meg Ryan in a restaurant. If she stalls long enough, maybe she'll work up the courage. Or Castle will relent and later they can role-play this fantasy in the privacy of the bedroom.

But so far he's not relenting, as though he's onto her. "C'mon. People come here just to do that all the time. The staff is used to it. Which makes this _perfect_. It's public, but not newsworthy since it happens so often, and even if someone recognizes you, you have the movie for a cover."

Just as Kate opens her mouth with another playful refusal, a woman begins to moan, her voice rising over the din. It's the curly blonde beneath the sign, and the bearded man sitting across from her watches, deadpan, while she proceeds to imitate the Sallygasm right there in the middle of the room.

But then something really strange happens.

More and more moaning resounds throughout the deli. Twenty or so seated women begin to sigh and keen and wail. Some of them run a hand through their hair; some throw back their heads and beat the tabletops. All of them writhe and grin and knit their brows in sensual pleasure.

If they aren't really coming, they're certainly enjoying putting on the show.

It's a ruckus.

Kate's eyes are wide at the sound and sight, and then her mind races to piece together the why and how of what she's sure can only be one of Castle's crazy schemes. She glares accusingly at him. "Did you do this?"

"I swear I didn't." He looks her in the eye as he says that much, but then his gaze wanders shamelessly again as he takes in the view of twenty orgasmic women. "I _wish _I did this."


	3. Chapter 3

The vibe jumps to life inside her, making her startle with a soft, involuntary moan.

Castle has somehow shifted his attention from the orgasmic horde to look at her like she's the only woman in the room. There's determination in his eyes; lust and power.

He doesn't say anything. He doesn't ask anything of her. Like anything he could possibly want is within his own control.

Oh fuck.

He's going to get her off in a room full of people.

The thought alone is enough to soak her.

She shifts unobtrusively in her seat and does Kegels around the vibrator, savoring the sensations, wanting them to last but begging inside for release.

Everything begins to sound far away, and she thinks she's being pleasured into oblivion until she realizes that it's the illusion that the panting, screaming women are creating. They're fading out like a music track, each one calmly collecting herself and smiling like a satisfied bitch in heat.

One patron who hasn't been participating in the noise is a gray-haired woman who's only been staring agape all this time. She stands up and announces loudly enough for the whole room to hear: "I'll have what _they're_ having."

People laugh and applaud and bond over having experienced something so bizarre together.

She should have expected it, Kate thinks afterward, but the older woman's last homage to the movie catches her off-guard, and her own laughter destroys her mounting tension and impending release.

"Fuck," she says under her breath.

"Did you—?"

"Almost." She's half-laughing and half-crying and one hundred percent trying not to draw attention now that the commotion is settling down.

She might have gotten away with being vocal earlier—either by herself or in the midst of the howling crowd, but now?

Now she's feeling the pressure to keep it contained. Not to mention the physical frustration of being so close before her body backed away from the edge.

Castle plays with the remote, trying to get her back there, but her body has physically rewound too far, and mentally she's convinced herself that she's missed her chance, be it a private orgasm or a re-enacted show.

He's sympathetic; seems to understand that it's time to get back to their trip. "I'm going to use the restroom before we head out. You need to go?"

Kate shakes her head no and manages a smile for him. It isn't _his _fault laughing robbed her of an orgasm. Not this time, anyway.

* * *

She tries not to feel awkward while he's gone. She's just an average patron sitting at a table in a famous deli with a toy in her pussy. A toy she cannot control. A game she's yet to win.

She's glad when he comes back and takes his seat.

"You ready?"

"Actually, I'm still hungry." He takes a nibble of the remaining pastrami. Seriously. A nibble.

She laughs, "Are you sure?"

Apparently he's sure. But he eats unbearably slowly, compensating for it by continuing to engage her in conversation and teasing her with periodic vibrations. And—oh, okay. That isn't half bad. Her body is more willing and wanting than she realized.

"How's that?" he asks openly.

"Surprisingly good."

"Good."

If she wants to get out of here, that was probably the wrong answer.

Castle continues on his mission, expertly notching up her arousal as though it had never fallen, and she's all the more convinced that he's taking his time for the sole purpose of drawing out her torture.

"Castle," she says finally, eyeing the last bits of his food. "Don't you want to get back on the road?"

Fucking hell, she'll take a thousand blocks of Green Means Go, Red Means Come in stop-and-go traffic if it means she doesn't have to hold anything back the moment she wins.

He watches something over her shoulder and then his attention is all hers again. "Listen," he whispers, buzzing her as though for emphasis. "It was staged. It was all staged."

"I thought you—"

"I didn't," he insists. "It's an improv group. I'm guessing they figured individuals pull a stunt like that all the time, so if they wanted to make a scene they had to make a good one."

She leans in conspiratorially. This feels good, listening to him divulge this information across a table in a crowded room. It feels like theory sex at the murder board. She feels her face go hot, and not just from the vibrator teasing her pussy. "What do you mean? How'd you know?"

"I overheard some guys talking by the bathroom. They're going to do it again in a few minutes, now that some people left and new people came in."

"Again?"

"That's why all these improv people have stuck around. Did you notice that most of them haven't finished their food?"

She glares at his plate and then back up at him. She's noticed _his _plate, _his _food.

But before either of them can speak, they hear familiar words coming from that same couple at the table beneath the sign. They're reciting Harry and Sally's conversation about whether or not Harry can discern a fake orgasm, and just like that, Sally launches into a reprise of the festivities, only to trigger more and more women.

"Don't fight it," Castle coaxes, just as the vibrator rockets past a setting or two. He's wearing his best deadpan Harry expression to blend in.

"Oh, God," she says into a sea of the same words. "I—"

"Just let it happen."

He ramps up the toy, working her to the point of frenzy. She's flying past where she was minutes ago, but she's still not quite where she wants to be.

"Look around, Kate," he insists, the command hushed but urgent. "Look around the room."

She does as he says. She watches the women, their faces screwed up in ecstasy. Her insides hum along with the toy.

She sees the staff, smiling and laughing at this large-scale spectacle, twenty times more ridiculous than any given day. They're watching the crowd. Including her. God, that's so hot. She should be embarrassed, shouldn't she? But she's so turned on, so hot, so wet, so hopelessly high on the rush she recognizes from her wild child years. They're watching her and she likes it.

But she's still in limbo, and she doesn't know if she can actually get off like this.

She looks over at the man with whom she made eye contact earlier, but he's preoccupied, watching his dining companion participate with the ranks of public orgasm re-enactors. He's effortlessly playing his part. He has the same deadpan look on his face as Castle and every other guy opposite a writhing woman.

But then he glances away and sees Kate. She's sure she's flushed, among other physiological signs beyond her control.

He's been thrown off his game. He looks hungry for her, the very sight of her. Even though he's still seated—reserved and collected—she reads his eyes and they say _I want to fuck you._

She imagines Castle fucking her on this table while the mystery man watches; imagines his date sucking him off while he envies Castle's hard cock, coated in Kate.

_You can't have me, _she writes in her eyes for him to find. _But you can watch._

And it rips through her as she's watching him watch her, her jaw hanging on a silent scream that she can only hold back for so long. Her mouth is so dry but still she sucks in air only to expel it again on a moan, and another and another. She grips the table to steady her body as pleasure washes over her and recedes again, leaving her sated and spent and staying upright for the sake of appearances but God knows how.

She's just one more writhing woman in the crowd, one more voice fading out like a song.

But Castle catches her eye, a boyish grin on his face because he's just mastered his new toy and his new toy has just mastered her. "I think it's safe to say you're the happiest woman in the room."


	4. Chapter 4

His breath tickles her skin as he leans in to whisper: "Go into the bathroom. Take off your underwear and take out the toy."

She'd hate to admit it, but hearing him say that here makes her cheeks burn, as though just listening to him talk is the most scandalous thing she's done today. More scandalous than either eye sex with a stranger or coming in her pants in the middle of a deli, moaning aloud and contorting in her seat. Such is the power of his words.

She nods and swallows hard and tries to collect herself enough to do as he asks, but when she stands to go, his voice beckons her to face him again: "Kate." He glances at her jacket, slung over the back of her chair. "You should put that on."

"Am I . . .?" _Wet? Really, really obviously wet?_

"No, but you don't have a purse, so . . ."

Oh. Right. Pockets. She'll need pockets unless she intends to carry her wet panties and the egg out of here in her bare hands. Fuck if she could just think clearly right now.

She drapes the jacket over her arm and follows the neon sign toward the ladies' room, the door's location in the dining area no more discreet than the illuminated words and arrow pointing to it.

With her destination announced in the obnoxious glow, she feels all the more on display. Between that and the squishy feeling at her crotch, this is both a walk of shame and a victory lap.

She doesn't even look over her shoulder at Castle. She wants him to see the victory of her stride, not whatever tinge of shame she may have in her eyes.

Because the shame doesn't bother her. It actually excites her a little bit more.

But seeing it would bother him, and she doesn't want him to stop.

* * *

Inside, she lines up behind two women waiting to use the two tiny stalls. With the addition of the improv troupe to the regular customers, Katz's is probably extra crowded tonight, so she's relieved that the line is as short as it is, but she does a silent meditation just to keep from relieving herself right here, right now.

With the egg still inside her, she can barely differentiate the fullness of her pussy and the fullness of her bladder.

Soon a voice interrupts her mindful breathing: "Wasn't that fun?" It's the woman ahead of her, the only other one waiting for a stall now that one more freed up, and—yeah, she's definitely talking to Kate.

Kate focuses and the question finally registers. "Oh. Yeah. It was."

"Have you done a lot of these?"

"A lot of . . ."

"Missions." The word rolls off the woman's tongue as easily as Castle offers theories about the CIA.

Meanwhile, Kate's detective skills kick in, and she plays off the context clues so she doesn't blow her cover. She's an honorary member of this improv troupe today. Just today. "Oh. No, not a lot," she says, honest and casual.

"Well, you should. You're really good."

Kate laughs and ducks her head and tries to react like she was just complimented on her acting and not on how hot her very real orgasm was.

"This is my second," the stranger volunteers.

Kate puts on her jacket, squeezes her thighs closer together, and makes conversation to distract them both. "Oh, yeah? Was this one better than the first?"

"Well, the other was Black Tie Beach. Hard to top that."

A flush from one of the stalls signals to Kate that she doesn't have to keep up this conversation much longer.

"Actually," the woman adds, "as great as this was, it felt more like a performance. The last one was just plain fun. Sometimes it's good just to let loose, you know?"

"Definitely." This chick doesn't know the half of it. But Kate opts not to enlighten her.

* * *

It isn't long after the woman takes a vacated stall that the next one opens up for Kate.

The toy slides easily out of her wet labia, and she cleans the come from it quickly before sticking it in her coat pocket, trying not to think too much about the stranger one stall away.

Soon the chatty woman is wordlessly washing and drying her hands, but once the blast of the dryer shuts off, she hesitates and calls out: "Nice meeting you," as though obligated to finish their pre-pee conversation, despite that Kate's still in the stall.

_Stalling,_ she thinks, immediately blaming Castle's influence. Public play and puns: Assimilation complete.

Fortunately, the stranger who's decidedly not a native New Yorker doesn't also hang around for a response from Kate, who's mentally choreographing how she'll strip in the small space. Once the bathroom door closes, Kate realizes she's finally alone to clean herself up in peace.

Clean up or . . . other things. Absentmindedly, she touches herself, sensitive enough now that she's grateful to be free of the vibrator, but still aching with a need to be penetrated by something more satisfying than an egg and aroused with the scent and sensation of her own soaked pussy.

But then she remembers that Castle hasn't lifted the ban on her self-stimulation. She lets out a soft, frustrated moan, willing herself to stop fantasizing that he'll come fuck her in here.

He must be sore with need by now, and if she's honest, the orgasm she had feels more like a prelude than a finale.

But this place is cramped and filthy and the sooner she does as he asked, the sooner they can get in the car and she can convince him to pull the fuck over.

She tries to keep her pants off the floor while she quickly slips out of her panties, all too self-conscious about how long she's been in here.

She already knew her underwear was long gone, but the wet spot in the crotch of her pants is something of a surprise. It's still visible by the time she's pulling her pants up again.

She tucks the panties in the pocket opposite the toy and goes to wash her hands, enjoying the reprieve of privacy.

That's when she gets a crazy idea. It isn't often that Kate asks herself, "What Would Castle Do?" but his thinking patterns have left an indelible mark.

As she turns her hands under the heat of the mustard yellow dryer on the wall, she glances furtively at the door and takes her panties out of her jacket pocket like she's slowly taking her gun from the holster. She gives them a preliminary dry, knowing it won't solve the problem but it can only help.

And—well, so long as she's here and doing crazy things. . . .

She rises on her toes and lifts her crotch toward the blast of air. She's just about convinced that this is futile and that little wet spot is probably harmless, anyway, when the door opens, and Kate jumps back.


	5. Chapter 5

Castle laughs from the crevice of the doorway just as she shoves her panties into her pocket. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"Didn't look like nothing."

"I was—drying. My hands." After what he's just done to her at the table, his catching her doing something silly still manages to fluster her. Running her bare hands beneath the dryer again, as though they still need it, she purses her lips and watches him, waiting for the wisecracks.

"Uh-huh. So listen. There's a waitress yelling at me and giving me the stinkeye right now. Apparently this neon sign is a little too obvious for me to claim I'm in the wrong restroom by mistake."

Well, that explains why he's just a head poking lewdly into the room and not buried balls deep inside her, where he should be.

"Also," he says, "I don't know if you've noticed, but this place smells like brisket and pickles. So if you and the dryer are done here . . ."

"Really? No blow job jokes?"

"I was getting to that." His eyes rove her entire body, pausing to admire her hands as she rubs them together under that ugly mustard yellow fixture. "And as hot as this is, I'd prefer the real thing."

She bites her lip, realizing it only after the fact. "I could give you the real thing."

"And I could come in and let you. Or I could stand right here and make you touch yourself while I tell you all the dirty things I want to do to you, but there's exhibitionism and then there's . . . Stinkeye. So how 'bout we take this show on the road?"

"I'm gonna hold you to that." She can think of plenty of ways to have fun on the road.

"Kate," he says suddenly, his eyes dark and greedy. "Unzip your pants."

Kate looks directly into his eyes and unbuttons and unzips the fly.

Of course she isn't wearing any panties, so she knows he can see that little bit more of her flesh. Her core is still mostly hidden beneath the pants that stay up only by the grace of her hips. So it's just a tease, but by the look on his face it's a damn good one.

She wonders if she's just flashing him or if he's going to touch her or make her touch herself or . . .

"Sir," the waitress calls over the clatter outside. From what little Kate can hear of her, Stinkeye sounds like a good moniker. "Sir, I told you that's the _ladies' _room."

Castle pries himself away just long enough to glance behind him, like he's going to come up with an excuse in order to appease Stinkeye, but apparently fails and swallows as he turns again to Kate. "Leave it like that, but close your jacket."

She does, and she gets to the doorway before Castle's figured out how to breathe. For the moment that she crosses the threshold, she holds her breath a little, too. The pants kiss her hips even as she walks and the jacket's long enough to keep her deceptively decent, but a little wet spot is now the least of her concerns.

Stinkeye watches them emerge and seems relieved that she no longer needs to juggle customer service and adult supervision.

"Zipper problem," Castle tells the waitress in passing, as though it explains everything.

Without missing a beat Kate chimes in: "It's fixed now."

* * *

Most of the improv group members are either gone or going, but a few have stayed behind with a small camera crew to interview some of the staff, and Kate and Castle find it a little hectic to make their way to pay for their meal and leave.

Finally, it's their turn.

"Thank you," an employee tells them, and it sounds like he means _for dining at Katz's tonight _until he says, "We enjoyed that."

Kate's awkwardness probably comes across like modesty, or maybe a healthy dose of embarrassment for engaging in an orgasmic flash mob, but she manages to say, "You're welcome."

"Our pleasure," Castle adds, and she finds it in herself not to step on his foot.

"You were very good," the employee tells Kate. "Are you a professional or do you just do this for fun?"

It's still bizarre to her to hear feedback on a sexual experience from someone other than her partner, and she makes the mistake of looking at Castle. There's a special place in hell for him, the way he's beaming. He's about a thousand times more amused now than he was when Chief Brady mistook her for a hooker, which is saying something.

Of course Castle answers before she does. "She's just getting into it."

At that the employee nods and seems to remember that he has a job to do. "Tickets?"

"Sure." Castle easily produces the ticket with his order on it, encoded in Katz's Deli shorthand.

Kate, however, does not.

They were warned when they arrived not to lose their tickets at the risk of a hefty fine in lieu of the exact payment, a method peculiar to this place.

And Castle, his amusement never waning, says innocuously enough: "Didn't you put it in your pocket?"

So then she's stuffing her hands in her jacket pockets, feeling around damp panties in one and a vibrator in the other and coming up otherwise empty.

And then she has a moment of clarity—terrible, terrible clarity. She lifts part of the hem of her jacket, careful not to give the guy more of a show than any of them bargained for; lifts just enough to sneak her hand into the tight little pocket of her pants that's too small for things like vibrators and panties and—there it is.

Teeny tiny little fucker. Screw the fine. This ticket almost cost her some dignity.

She hands it in and Castle pays for their food, but part of her—a mostly playful and entirely vengeful part of her—still wants him to pay dearly in other ways for his part in this mess, and she glares daggers pretty much from the door to the car.

Castle's undeterred. "They enjoyed it," he teases her along the way. "But you enjoyed it more."

"Shut up." A smile eases the tension in her brow and they both know it's as good as her conceding that he isn't wrong.

* * *

"So," he says in the car, Manhattan behind them. "The bad news is you didn't catch my let's-do-dirty-things-in-the-bathroom hint. The good news is, once I saw the bathrooms, that wasn't such a bad thing. But we're going to have to work out a signal."

"A signal, huh?"

"You know what?" he says, caressing her inner thigh, and she gets the sense that he's not even thinking about the undesignated signal anymore. "Watching you have a real, uncontained orgasm in public was even better than watching you fake one."

"Not that you would actually know," Kate teases, but obviously the only effect this has on him is to stroke his ego, a fact he doesn't even try to hide.

"No, I wouldn't."

It may have been a mistake to let him know he's as good as he thinks he is. Then again, even if he becomes insufferable about it, at least he'll keep up the good work.

Like right now. Lighting little fires up and down her legs.

She rolls her eyes and consciously remembers not to touch herself, all too aware of her bare skin beneath her open fly. "So were you going to let me come so soon or was that a detour from your master plan?"

He laughs. "So _soon_? Need I remind you: You were going to climb the walls." He turns from the windshield to catch a glimpse of her. "Still are."

"I'm not complaining," she assures him. "It just seemed ahead of schedule."

"Let me let you in on one of my Secrets of Public Sex. Flexibility." Castle's eyes crinkle at the sides when he smirks. "Oh, well, actually, both kinds of . . . The point is, there are going to be times when things don't go according to plan. Either something goes wrong, or something goes ridiculously right. Sometimes—"

Kate unbuckles her belt and strokes the proud bulge in Castle's lap.

He manages to finish the thought, but his voice suffers for it. "Sometimes there's an opportunity you just have to take."

She bites his earlobe, inhaling his delicious cologne as she unzips him. "Like this one?"

It takes some maneuvering, but all too soon and not soon enough, Kate frees his shaft through the hole of his boxers. He's hard and heavy and leaking for her. When she sees the wet spot on his boxers, she feels just a little bit vindicated for everything she's gone through tonight.

She sucks the head into her mouth and can't help but smile around it.


End file.
